Why Look Further?
by frauleina
Summary: Season 2, Angel – Epiphany. A spin on what Angel was thinking when he stepped off the elevator and back into LA, aka Hell. The twist is Darla shows up to help push Angel just a little bit further around the bend. Co-written with Naomi - thanks hon!


**Spoilers**: Season 2, Angel – Epiphany **Disclaimer**: We don't own them – just borrowing.**Thanks: **To Prophecy for having the patience of a saint with my many rewrites.

**Why Look Further?**

When I looked out and saw the homeless man I knew something was very wrong. And then I was numb with understanding. I thought I was beyond feeling, but when that sight hit me, and I realized what I was seeing, where I was, I felt again - for just a moment and I wanted to cry. The urge to weep passed swiftly, as did my anger and then I felt nothing. I was empty.

I had been ready to die. I had been ready to kill, and kill and kill and kill. And maybe, finally, I would find some peace. I knew my road tonight was a one-way trip to hell – that was sort of the plan. I intended to take them all down, to end them all with me. Sure, there was a small part of me that didn't want to leave, that didn't want to make the sacrifice to rid this world of them. But I was committed to it, willing to pay the price to remove them from this plain of existence. And, one way or the other it would be done. I would be done. But standing there, looking out across the square, listening to Holland tell me how I knew all along, how I had been one of the darkest to inhabit this place, how I shouldn't be surprised to be here now, I let go of the few remaining strands of determination I had left. I was lost.

"Now do you see?" came that familiar sultry, taunting voice.

As I stumbled out of the elevator, tears in my eyes, throat-swollen shut with emotion not knowing how to feel, or what I felt my heart froze at her words. She was going to haunt me forever. Darla was standing there, that superior smirk on her face; her slender form covered in one of the curve-kissing red dresses that were her trademark. "Now do you see why they don't deserve your pain? Why they're easier just to be food?"

I looked at her, heart breaking because there was a part of me that understood her. Who knew. Who agreed. And that destroyed the last of me. I was supposed to be better then that, stronger then that. And I found, as I had secretly known all along, I wasn't.

"Yes.. you do see. Dontcha, darling boy?" she grinned broadly.

God I hated her. And, I wanted her. She was my death all over again. Looking at her I flashed back to the Darla that had lived, the Darla I couldn't save and for a brief moment I felt all the regrets I had and I mourned that woman.

She laughed out loud, "I know that look in your eyes. You're hungry..." She griped my arms and pulled herself flush against me. "In more ways than one..."

She wasn't warm, but God, she was soft. She felt so right against me I gasped at the sensation. But she didn't stay that close for long, but darted away, laughing again. I groaned in disappointment and opened my eyes in surprise as she slipped from my grasp.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, precious," she waggled a finger scoldingly. "Isn't that too aggressive for our tortured, heroic soul?"

I looked at her in confusion, and despair as she teased me with her flirting manner and I had the urge to possess her, to conquer her and to make her mine. I needed something to hold on to, to anchor me as I was drowning and my sire was there. I blindly lunged at her, grabbed her hand and pulled her back flush against me. I gripped her arms, wrapped one arm around her waist, buried my head in her hair and crushed her to me.

Darla laughed low in her throat. "You're hurting me..." there was a delight in that husky voice.

"I thought you liked that...." I said with a low growl, and a twist of my hips. I couldn't help but smirk, enjoying her confusion.

"I thought you were better than that..." she tossed back, eyes lidding briefly with a wave of ecstasy. "I thought you were too good to accept who and what you are..."

I was enjoying this and decided to play, to enjoy her for a while. "You know I am baby...good," I whispered suggestively in her ear, curious to know what she would do with my barely veiled invitation.

"You were," she shrugged. "Once you were the best there was... then you went all sniveling do-gooder...," she sneered. She was trying to stay aloof as she had so many times in the past when I had angered her and then played the sex card.

I couldn't resist brushing my face through her hair and inhaling deeply as I held her. I clutched her to me selfishly - to make sure I was still here. And she smelled so good, so alluring. Womanly, but also of something deeper and more meaningful – she smelled - like my sire, my creator, and my world for over a hundred years and I clasped that to me, as I had nothing else to hold on to.

"You had your chance Darla," I reminded her. Not really believing she would follow through I added, "I think I gave it to you in China and you threw me out. Would you do it if you had that chance again?" I grasped her arms tightly in anticipation, tettering on the edge. I wanted her. I needed her. But, I wasn't about to ask - she had to be the one to make that first move.

Darla snorted. "You threw your chance away by denying what you truly are! Before you killed me, I warned you, my boy that your true nature can only be suppressed for so long..." She tiptoed and brushed the tip of her tongue -warm and carrying the tangy taste of fear-laced human blood; she must have fed recently - across my lips.

God... She tasted so good. I groaned and shut my eyes, trying not to embarrass myself by throwing her against the nearby wall to take her right then, but instead took her in a deep kiss to taste more of her. I was holding on by the merest string and as long as she was in my arms I was ok. I just didn't know or cared to know what would happen when I let go.

Her eyes sparkled with mirth when she pulled away from a long, deep, suffocating kiss that no human could have taken. "Guess what, precious?"

I opened my eyes to look at her in answer, not trusting myself to speak.

"It's exploding... and look where I am...." One finger traces the line of my lips. "Ring-side seat..."

I looked at her for a second not quite knowing what she meant. And then it hit me. She had a ringside seat to my complete destruction. And, as I realized it, I welcomed it. It would be a relief.

I felt something pass through me. Sorrow maybe, and then joy. And then nothing.

When I opened my eyes I knew I still had my soul, but I no longer cared. I smirked as I spun her again in my arms. Holding her to my chest I looked down into her startled eyes and greeted them with a burning look of desire.

"Angelus?" Her voice is breathy, full of anticipation.

I smiled and said what came naturally, "Yeah baby.... I'm back."

I laughed darkly and quickly swept her into a brutal kiss; searching out the wonderful sweet taste she had taunted me with a moment before. God, how I had missed it, longed for it, forgotten how good it was. I pulled away finally, licking my lips and shoved her from me with a gleeful laugh.

She laughed - a sound of pure triumph; her eyes gleaming ferally. "Welcome back... I missed you, my boy..."

I looked at the people in the square around us and I saw what she saw. Meals. Lots and lots of meals and not one of them was innocent. I knew that now.

"Yes!" she nodded, reading my eyes the way she always could. Her words drew my attention back from the warm masses surrounding me. I looked down at her and drank in her triumph, her joy. This was what I needed all along, I thought – this would be fun. I stepped toward her and again crushed her into a deep kiss, pulling her body to mine and explored her luscious curves. I claimed her. I owned her in that kiss. I couldn't get enough, as I kept pushing until our momentum carried us to the building, so engrossed was I in reaching her, possessing her.

"It really is you, Angelus..." her voice was a mere breath as she tilted her head back, giving mute permission for me to taste her blood - to share that intimacy that had made us more than sire and childe... that had sealed the partnership that Europe had feared so much.

As her blood melted its way into me I felt soothed, right, and whole for the first time in over a century. There was no substitute for the sweetness of one's sire, or of one sharing that power so freely. I drank of her deeply. I was drunk in the taste of her. Her strong, tender hands stroked my hair; comforting, loving, rejoicing. That slender frame shivered a little from emotions and from the feeding - an act in itself more intimate than any intercourse. "Yes," I thought as I savored the flavor, the borrowed warmth, as I felt stronger as her essence spread through me. She was my savor, my redemption. Why look any further?


End file.
